It never ceases to amaze me how backward hams are when it comes to computer systems. The pure junk they try to keep running with their crappy outdated operating systems and ancient hardware is just laughable.

Wants even cuter is when they spend several thousand on gear and yet try to keep cheap dated computer gear alive. New ATA hard drives for old computers are nearly non existent now too increases chances on a total system failure that cannot be fixed with new replacement parts.

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--------------------------------------Ham since 1969.... Old School 20wpm REAL Extra Class..

It never ceases to amaze me how backward hams are when it comes to computer systems. The pure junk they try to keep running with their crappy outdated operating systems and ancient hardware is just laughable.

Some prefer to use the right tool for the job. Laughing all the way while getting their stuff done.

And to paraphrase from a post I read here on eham not too long ago:To think the release of a new OS by Microsoft has anything to do with you (the end user) is just uninformed

It never ceases to amaze me how backward hams are when it comes to computer systems. The pure junk they try to keep running with their crappy outdated operating systems and ancient hardware is just laughable.

Some prefer to use the right tool for the job. Laughing all the way while getting their stuff done.

And to paraphrase from a post I read here on eham not too long ago:To think the release of a new OS by Microsoft has anything to do with you (the end user) is just uninformed

The laughing part is clinging to old hardware and OS. Even a cheap entry level system today is light years ahead of a main stream XP of a decade ago. wait too long and pretty soon new Win 7 machines will be gone. The longer you cling to XP the more painful the inevitable transition from it will be one day.

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--------------------------------------Ham since 1969.... Old School 20wpm REAL Extra Class..

This page just goes to show how much some people will bend over frontwards and let Microsoft dictate what's new and what's old, or better still--what's useable and what's outmoded. If the system that you've got works for you and you're happy with it, don't let anyone else tell you it's obsolete.

The same thing with the 'availability' of older parts. 5 1/4 floppy drives have been obsolete for years, but they're still being sold. 3 1/2 floppys are obsolete now--but you can still buy computers that have them installed. Hard drives are no different. The older ones are still available, and will be.

I like the UI of Windows 8 okay. Lack of start button doesn't bother me... if you stick your mouse in the lower left corner you get the start screen, and that's a pretty small change.

I like a lot of the gesture control stuff on a big trackpad on my laptop. It's not strictly only useful for touchscreens.

On a laptop I haven't found much use yet for the new-style programs... er "apps" THOSE seem to be mostly useful for tablets and phones especially because they don't keep running in the background. Google Chrome in Win 8 style is beautiful and gives more screen real estate but if I'm listening to music in it or something, that suspends when I swipe away from it.

My one real gripe of Windows 8, which isn't actually Microsoft's fault, is that the Windows ports of GNU Octave don't work on Windows 8 yet. In a pinch it's a dual boot machine and I can switch to Ubuntu for that.

I used XP right up to the switch to Win 8 on most of my machines, though I did have Win 7 starter on my netbook and liked that. But it's a little hard to run 16GB of RAM with XP

This page just goes to show how much some people will bend over frontwards and let Microsoft dictate what's new and what's old, or better still--what's useable and what's outmoded. If the system that you've got works for you and you're happy with it, don't let anyone else tell you it's obsolete.

Actually it is industry and technology that is dictating the direction now and MicroSoft is trying to keep up with it. Hardware has come a long way since XP days and needs newer than a 13 year old OS to exploit and utilize it. I know a guy that bought a new computer powered by a Intel quad core and running 64bit WIN 7. He down graded it to XP and it turned into a slug. While XP "saw" the 4 cores it could not really use them properly nor the hardware as XP was never written to support it and no after market support for chipset drivers because XP is a dead end.

The same thing with the 'availability' of older parts. 5 1/4 floppy drives have been obsolete for years, but they're still being sold. 3 1/2 floppys are obsolete now--but you can still buy computers that have them installed. Hard drives are no different. The older ones are still available, and will be.

Any parts available are old and I have not seen a name brand system sold/shipped with a floppy drive in over 10 years now. Hard drive and CD drives for old IDE interface XP era computers are getting very scarce too as it s a dead standard that was replaced by serial ATA. Newer HD's based on new technology and many times faster, cooler running, quieter and longer lifespan too.

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--------------------------------------Ham since 1969.... Old School 20wpm REAL Extra Class..

Actually it is industry and technology that is dictating the direction now and MicroSoft is trying to keep up with it....

And I suppose that it was not Microsoft's decision to combine two operating systems into one and produce Windows 8? Sorry, but I can't agree with that statement. Microsoft is still the driving force behind computer technology, since they also develop and manufacture hardware. Or don't the court cases concerning their monopolizing the computer industry interest you?

Microsoft is still the driving force behind computer technology, since they also develop and manufacture hardware

A large portion of the day-to-day computing needs of a huge fraction of today's computer users can be handled by a touchscreen device or two.

Furthermore, it seems to me that every "consumer" computing platform, including Ubuntu Linux, has come to the realization that some users want all of their devices to act the same way and sync together seamlessly and automatically. This was pretty clear to me when both the factory-installed Win 8 and my Ubuntu installation BOTH wanted me to sign up for the corresponding cloud services and a couple weeks later I found out that Ubuntu is coming out with a phone! They will also do tablets, there's an Ubuntu "App Store," and all that.

Some of Windows 8's touchscreen-oriented features are a little out of place on a laptop (though they wouldn't be on a touchscreen laptop) but having the same OS on the home machine, phone, and tablet seems to be what the non-Apple companies are doing to compete with Apple's success with the iPhone and iPad.

Microsoft is most certainly not leading the charge on this; Apple changed the market and others are playing catch-up on smartphone/tablet integration into a user's home computer system. I think that others could compete on technical merit, hardware power and cost, and ease of use, but Apple was there first.

Actually it is industry and technology that is dictating the direction now and MicroSoft is trying to keep up with it....

And I suppose that it was not Microsoft's decision to combine two operating systems into one and produce Windows 8? Sorry, but I can't agree with that statement. Microsoft is still the driving force behind computer technology, since they also develop and manufacture hardware. Or don't the court cases concerning their monopolizing the computer industry interest you?

The tried to monopolize software but they only recently started building computers in the form of tablet. Also what to operating systems into one? Metro is a shell not a OS.

Microsoft is most certainly not leading the charge on this; Apple changed the market and others are playing catch-up on smartphone/tablet integration into a user's home computer system. I think that others could compete on technical merit, hardware power and cost, and ease of use, but Apple was there first.

The main reason for this was the lack of a ultra low powered x86 CPU for tablet market. Ipad and Android use a ARM processor which is a reduced instruction set low power CPU. It is not compatible with x86 code. MS's Windows RT is a version for Windows for ARM CPU but it has no compatibility with existing apps and apps like Word written for RT do not look and feel the same as desktop version again because of ARM CPU. Enter the 3rd generation Atom (along with a 4th generation i5 CPU) which is powering Surface pro tablet running a full desktop version of 8. As lowly as Atom is regarded power wise it is more powerful than most ARM processors and a new 4th gen version is coming with a new quad core with a new core design too that will boost performance well above all ARM CPU's. Apple was indeed first but I doubt they will maintain their grip long as x86 hardware is evolving and next gen Atom will support Android too. Apple lock is going to be broken.

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--------------------------------------Ham since 1969.... Old School 20wpm REAL Extra Class..

The tried to monopolize software but they only recently started building computers in the form of tablet. Also what to operating systems into one? Metro is a shell not a OS.

And that's where Microsoft has failed. The OS upgrade was necessary but they didn't need to shoe horn everyone into Metro. If they had a Win7 UI mode as an option, a full implementation of the UI with all keyboard short cuts and all, then a lot of people who use their computers for work, real work not just putzing around with picture, games, or web surfing, would be happy.

I still hold the position that Microsoft in the industry leader. If a company product get a 'blessing' in the form of Microsoft's recognition and inclusion, then that company is sure to profit and it's 'product' is sure to succeed. If, however, that product gets shunted aside in favor of a competing product, the company's product will have a very hard--if not impossible--time to be accepted and widely distributed.

Also, it still is the norm that applications are built to specs that Microsoft puts out, not that Microsoft builds their OS to accommodate an application that is built to that company's specs.

The tried to monopolize software but they only recently started building computers in the form of tablet. Also what to operating systems into one? Metro is a shell not a OS.

And that's where Microsoft has failed. The OS upgrade was necessary but they didn't need to shoe horn everyone into Metro. If they had a Win7 UI mode as an option, a full implementation of the UI with all keyboard short cuts and all, then a lot of people who use their computers for work, real work not just putzing around with picture, games, or web surfing, would be happy.

Because we are migrating to a touch screen world and failing to support this has cost Microsoft a lot and will cost more in future if they do no change with it. 8 is a step in that direction. We cannot keep the XP blinders on and hope for best.

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--------------------------------------Ham since 1969.... Old School 20wpm REAL Extra Class..

If they had a Win7 UI mode as an option, a full implementation of the UI with all keyboard short cuts and all, then a lot of people who use their computers for work, real work not just putzing around with picture, games, or web surfing, would be happy.

Just install classic shell and that is exactly what you get. You can even play around in Metro if you want with classic shell installed.

And that is why I have a Mac and Linux on my machines .... I only have the Mac loaded cause It plays most mainstream games that I am interested in without having to run them through wine and hope for the best.

As for IDE drives, the company I work for has ALOT of legacy gear out there that runs on the IDE drives and we can still procure them with no issue at this point. Though I do agree that the consumer market is seeing less of them these days. (We still have a few places that are running Win9x in a production environment and dare I say Win NT3.x as well? It dosent take alot of processor to add merchandise and calculate taxes

I have seen a couple accounts we service that are running Intel PII processors and we can still get parts for those...

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